by M J Lee
This voice was followed soon after by the sound of his stick being whacked across the bottom of an errant boy or two.
Harry was working with Slimo, Little Tom, a Maltese boy called Ronnie and an Irish lad. They had been assigned the third station to build, the one where Jesus falls for the first time. Unfortunately, this was one of the furthest stations from the quarry. They were already exhausted by the time they had hauled the cart to the white-painted rock.
Little Tom looked around before flopping to the floor.
‘Don’t, Tom, he’ll see.’ Harry had become constantly aware of where each brother was at any given moment.
‘I... don’t... care.’
‘Come on, get up. Hold this rock, pretend you’re creating a pile.’ Harry helped him to his feet, giving him a light stone to carry whilst the others emptied the cart.
The stone dropped at Little Tom’s bare feet.
Harry glanced over his shoulder. ‘Pick it up!’
Little Tom just stared at him.
Harry was about to help him when he heard the voice.
‘You heathens, what do you think you’re doing?’ Brother Keaney appeared alongside them as if out of thin air, the stick already in his hand, cheeks burning red beneath his horn-rimmed glasses. ‘You, boy – move those rocks.’
Little Tom stared at Brother Keaney, swaying slightly beneath the hot sun.
The arm was raised, the stick extending up towards the sky. ‘Did you not hear me?’ The accent thicker now, like molten earth.
Little Tom blinked twice and slowly reached down to pick up the rock at his feet.
The stick dropped beneath shoulder height.
A shout from the next station along. ‘Brother, can you come here?’ It was one of the Italian supervisors.
‘Get a bloody move on,’ snarled Brother Keaney, before moving off along the road, his boots kicking up whispers of hot dust.
Little Tom aimed to throw the rock at the departing brother, but his arm was grabbed by Slimo. ‘I wouldn’t do that, mate.’
For a second both of them stood facing each other until, finally, Little Tom’s shoulders relaxed and he said, ‘I don’t think I can stomach it any more.’
‘Just keep your head down, mate, like the rest of us. Keep your head down.’ He let go of Little Tom’s arm and continued unloading the rocks from the cart.
Their little gang spent the next week making the third station. The Italians had created a mould in the shape of a cross. Once they had built the foundation and tamped down the quarried stones, they were instructed how to make the lime mortar.
Harry poured three buckets of sand into an old wheelbarrow, making a well in the centre. This was followed by pouring a bucket of lime into the well. Each time he poured the lime, the powder rose up in a thick dense cloud, causing him to cough until his chest ached. The Italian mason saw him and placed an old snot-caked handkerchief around his mouth.
The lime also stung like a swarm of wasps if it landed in any open cut or graze. None of them were immune from this pain; their feet, legs and arms were covered in cuts and bruises from the sharp stones.
After mixing the sand and lime together, Slimo came to pour water into the mix, adding a little at a time and turning it over constantly with a shovel. Little Tom and the Maltese boy, Ronnie, helped him too, using small trowels to mix the mortar, making sure it was an even colour and texture. They would cover the mixture with a tarp for the night. Next morning, they would begin pouring it into the cross-shape mould that had been fashioned by the Italians.
By the time they had finished, the concrete cross was more than six feet tall. For the next week, Harry and Little Tom had the job of keeping all fourteen stations damp to allow the mortar to set. This involved splashing water over the mould and letting it seep into the mortar.
Finally, the Italians removed the mould, leaving an off-grey cross standing proudly on its plinth, the sharp lines a stark contrast to the soft, undulating grasslands and scrub of its surrounds.
The Italians than produced hand-painted ceramic tiles for the stations and fixed them beneath the cross piece. The paintings were simple, just telling the story of Jesus and his actions on the days before his death on the cross. Harry and Tom were given a tray of paints and told to touch up any damage that had occurred whilst the tiles had been transported from Perth.
Harry loved this work. Applying the fine paints with a small brush, ensuring the colours matched and were evenly distributed. He particularly liked applying the bright red paint on the body of Jesus in the thirteenth station, as he is taken down from the cross by the disciples before being placed in the tomb. The red blood was fresh and bright, not like their own blood, which was soured with dust and dirt.
When they had finished, Brother Keaney stood facing the row of crosses along the road. All fourteen stations were whitewashed, with a small wooden cross, fashioned by the boys in the woodshed, nailed above every picture of Jesus’s life.
‘You’ve done a fine job, lads. It’s a fitting testament for the Archbishop.’
As he strode away, rosary jangling at his waist, Harry stared up at the final station. The picture was of Jesus resting in his tomb before the resurrection.
His face looks so peaceful, he thought, like a man who has sacrificed himself for others.
Chapter Forty-One
December 23, 1952
St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School, Bindoon, Western Australia
It was just before Christmas when Little Tom came to him. One night, well after lights out, Harry felt a tap on his shoulder and awoke to find Little Tom kneeling beside his bed.
‘I can’t take no more.’
‘Is it Brother Thomas?’
In the moonlight streaming in through the window, Harry could see the area around Tom’s eyes was red and bruised.
‘What have you done to your eyes?’
Little Tom rubbed them again roughly with the heel of his hand.
Harry reached out, grabbing hold of his arm. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s my eyes. He says they are so lovely and blue.’
Harry heard Little Tom’s voice catch and his chest grab for air as he stifled a sob. ‘He came for you again?’
The silent nod of the head.
Little Tom had been moved back in from the bed-wetters’ veranda three months ago. He still wet the bed, but it didn’t seem to matter any more. One night, Harry heard the door open and the familiar sound of sandals flapping on the floorboards. The sound had stopped at the end of his bed and he had lain there praying for it not to be him. For the brother, whichever one it was, to move on and take somebody else.
Harry had held his breath and buried himself deeper beneath the coarse blanket. ‘Please let it be someone else. Please not me.’
The sandals made a sound again, moving away from his bed to the one next door. He heard a few whispered words and then the sound of Tom’s bare feet accompanying the sandals out of the room.
Harry lay in the dark, listening to the wind through the trees and the creaking of the roof joists, settling after a day being heated by the hot sun. In the distance, the screech of a bird or some other animal, hunting or being hunted, in the shadows of the night.
He was thankful he hadn’t been taken.
Not tonight.
Tom eventually came back and climbed into his own bed.
Next morning he said nothing, but Harry knew what had happened. All the boys knew but nobody ever talked about it. How could they?
Now Tom was kneeling beside his bed in the middle of the night, shaking with fear.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Run away.’
‘Where?’
‘I dunno, Anywhere away from here.’
‘Not much of a plan.’
‘Will you come too, Harry?’
He thought for a moment. He could hear the sadness in Tom’s voice, the slight catch in the throat, as if waiting and steeling himself for rejection.
‘I will. When are we off?’
‘I thought about Christmas Day. The brothers will take the day off after Mass, we could slip away then and nobody would know we were missing until the following day.’
‘I need to write my letter to mum. I always write one at the end of the month.’
‘You had any replies?’
Harry shook his head.
‘Why d’you keep writing? It takes you ages.’
Harry shrugged his shoulders. ‘I dunno.’ Then he thought a bit more. ‘It keeps her alive for me. One day she’ll come and take me away.’
‘But… you still want to escape with me?’
‘Yeah, perhaps we can find a ship in Perth, like the one we came on. Take it back home. They have to go back, don’t they, Tom?’
‘I suppose so…so you’re on for Christmas Day?’
Harry nodded again, before adding, ‘What happens if we get caught?’
Harry sensed a shrug of the shoulders in the dark. ‘Dunno and don’t care. I’m not staying here no more.’
Chapter Forty-Two
December 25, 1952
St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School, Bindoon, Western Australia
Christmas Day arrived. Out of the goodness of his heart, Father Keaney had given everybody the day off to celebrate the birthday of our Lord. The breakfast was still the same, though: grey-brown porridge. But everyone was given an orange as ‘a special treat’.
There were no presents, except an extra-long Mass said by a priest from Perth who was visiting. God, the man liked the sound of his own voice as he read the sermon. Afterwards, the monks retired to their rooms and the boys to the dormitory.
All except Tom and Harry, who hid in the showers waiting for everything to quieten down. From out of his pocket, Tom produced a piece of paper cut from a magazine. ‘See, I reckon if we head south-west, cross over the road and keep heading in the same direction, we’ll eventually reach the Great Northern Highway. There we can hitchhike to Perth or any other place the lift is going.’
‘That’s the plan?’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘What are we going to eat?’
Tom produced two stale crusts of bread from his other pocket. ‘Nicked ’em from the pigs. They’ll keep us going until we reach Perth.’
Harry eyed the stale crusts. He could see spots of green mould growing on the edges. ‘Water?’ he asked.
Tom glanced around him. ‘We’re in the showers, let’s drink our fill.’ He then ran to one of the lockers where the monks kept the cleaning gear, reached behind it and produced an old bottle of HP sauce. ‘It’s all I could nick yesterday from the kitchen. Brother Paul was watching me all the time.’
They cleaned out the bottle, filling it with water.
‘We’re not taking anything else?’
‘We don’t have anything else. Come on.’
They ran around the back of the showers and up the hill overlooking Boys Town, making sure to keep low in a gully and out of sight. At the top, Tom paused for a moment, looking up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun.
‘Which way now?’ said Harry.
‘We have to cross the road and head south-west.’ Tom pointed to the road leading past Boys Town.
‘How’d you know the way to go?’
‘The sun. It’s about nine thirty now, so the sun is over there.’ He pointed into the sky. ‘That’s south and over there must be south-west.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘There’s always magazines hanging round the kitchens. The brothers leave them. When Brother Paul’s not watching, I have a read.’ He strode off towards the south-west. ‘Come on.’
They crossed the road to Boys Town carefully, after checking that no traffic was coming. Luckily, it was quiet – just a long, thin strip of tarmac stretching off into the distance, surrounded by orange soil, rolling hills and yellow, parched grass.
They still walked barefoot, their feet hardened by six months of working on the buildings, but even they had to tread carefully on the baking tar, hopping like scalded cats on ashes. They were thankful to get back into the bush, where the bare earth or tussock grass was their friend.
After an hour of walking under the hot sun, they hit a dirt road. ‘Right or left?’ asked Harry.
Tom checked the map and pointed towards the right. ‘The highway is over there.’ He strode off down the road, its soft dirt scored with tyre tracks.
Harry ran to catch him up. ‘You know, it’s Christmas Day, there won’t be many people on the road.’
‘There’ll be some. We’ll get a lift.’
‘And then what?’
He shrugged his shoulders like he always did. ‘I don’t know, Harry. We’ll see.’
They walked on in silence until they hit the highway: a wider, busier road.
‘Now we just stand here and wait,’ said Tom.
The first two cars went sailing past them. ‘An Austin and a Holden Forty-Eight. Old people, they won’t stop. We need a truck.’
Five minutes later a truck came and Tom was right, it stopped forty yards past them, screeching to a halt in a cloud of orange dust. They ran after it. The driver, unshaven, with a thick black moustache and wearing a sweat-stained bush hat, leant out of the window. ‘Where you going, young ’uns?’
Tom spoke first. ‘Perth. Can you give us a lift?’
The man rubbed his stubbled chin. He spoke slowly, with a heavy drawl, as if he were chewing the words before spitting them out. ‘Well, mates, I’m only going to Muchea, but at least you’ll be on the highway.’
‘That’ll do.’
They ran around to the opposite side of the cab and climbed in, Little Tom in the middle and Harry near to the open window.
The driver put the truck in gear and slowly pulled away.
‘Where ye from, mates? Ye sound like Poms,’ he shouted above the engine noise.
‘We are. Or at least, our family is. We live on a farm back there. Off to Perth to see our auntie.’
‘Your dad’s English?’
‘Came out five years ago.’
Harry listened to Tom’s lies. There was a confidence in his voice Harry hadn’t heard before.
The driver peered straight down the road, staring at the black ribbon of tar stretching in front of them. ‘Where did you say the farm was, mates?’
Tom laughed. ‘I didn’t, but it’s at Mindara.’
‘You’ve come a ways.’
‘Got a lift this morning. One of the brothers, going to Bindoon Boys Town.’
‘Aye, I heard about the place, them’s doin’ good work.’
Tom and Harry stayed silent as the driver changed down a gear to climb a small hill, the truck’s engine noise increasing in pitch.
After a few minutes, they passed through Bindoon town itself. Harry had been through there often with the pig truck, taking the slops from Bindoon to a farmer.
They both stiffened as they drove down the main street, and Tom gripped Harry’s hand. But there were few people around; most were at home, enjoying the delights of a Christmas lunch.
The driver just kept on going, looking neither left nor right. After they had passed through the town and were back into the open countryside, Tom spoke again. ‘Why are you working on Christmas Day?’
The man seemed to think for a while. ‘I work every day, Christmas or not. Had a load for Glenvar, not far from you boys.’
‘Is it?’
‘You don’t know?’
Luckily, the man spoke so slowly Tom had time to recover. ‘Course we do, Mr Elgin’s over in Glenvar, isn’t he?’
‘Is he? Don’t know no Elgin.’
‘My dad works with him,’ Tom said confidently.
After that, the conversation went quiet again. Obviously, the driver didn’t speak much and when he did, it was like waiting for heaven to arrive as the words slithered out between his lips.
Harry was glad for the quiet. The more Tom said, the more the man would find o
ut about them.
Outside the windows, the Australian bush swept by. Still the same orange soil. Still the same spare bushes. Still the same bleached grass.
But there were no kangaroos.
And there were no fruit trees.
The priest at St Michael’s had lied to them.
They reached a crossroads and turned left towards a road signposted ‘Muchea’.
‘You can drop us here, mate. The road to Perth is straight ahea,’ Tom said.
‘I’ll take youse just a bit farther. You can pick up the road again in Muchea.’
They drove for another 500 yards, the driver gripping the wheel tight. Then he pulled to the right and slid to a stop next to a sign with the words ‘Police’ in white against a blue background.
A young constable came out from the house. ‘What we got here then, Mick?’
‘A couple of runaways from Bindoon, Albert. I was goin’ to take ’em back meself, but me dinner is on and the wife’d kill me if I’m late. You on your own today?’
‘Nah, the missus is with me. She can look after the fort while I’m gone.’ He opened the passenger side door. ‘Out you get,’ he ordered.
Harry hesitated for a moment before a big, meaty hand reached in and pulled him out. Tom followed him and the driver immediately drove off in a cloud of dust without saying another word.
‘You can come inside and wait while I get my keys.’
He led them into the dark interior. A young woman, hair swept back off her head and tied in a ponytail, was sitting behind a desk.
‘We got a couple of runaways from Bindoon. I’ll take ’em back. Won’t be long.’
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
The constable left, but not before telling them, ‘Don’t do anything stupid. This here’s my wife. If you do anything to upset her, you’ll taste this.’ He held up a thick fist in front of Harry’s face. Harry could see the hair growing in profusion on the back of the knuckles.
